Nom-Able

If you’re looking for the s’mores pie you got at a restaurant or diner recently — that chocolate-pudding confection with whipped cream, fudge, mini-marshmallows, or whatever else passes for “S’mores Pie” these days — then I’m sorry, friend, but you’ve come to the wrong place. The recipe you’ll find within this page is NOTHING that fancy. It is pretty much what the title implies — a quick dessert you can whip up in almost any kitchen that’s cheep and easy and satisfies that deep longing for campfire cooked s’mores that no city dweller can satisfy.

Or, in my case, uses up leftover s’mores fixings from a barbecue.

But come on, look at that photo and tell me your mouth isn’t watering already at the thought of melted Hershey’s chocolate, graham crackers, and slightly-blackened marshmallows.

Don’t lie to me. I see you drooling.

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It’s hard to write a piece about anything when you have a belly full of Thierry & Guy Fat Bastard wine and you’re watching Eddie Izzard, which is the situation I find myself in right now. Oh, and I’m rather stuffed to the gills with a pretty good summer version of Fettucine Alfredo.

“Alfredo sauce? In the summer? You’re joking!” I hear you say. And I’d usually say that you’re right. But, in the words of Buzz Lightyear, “Not Today!”

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After the complete disaster that was Baked Chicken with Noodles, I was pretty sure I was through with The alli Cookbook and the plan in general. I mean, that first meal was just awful — several dozen photographs couldn’t even make it look good, and not even liberal amounts of hot sauce would improve the taste. There was just so much wrong with it — the lack of spices, the lack of sauce, the way the cheese just curdled and drooped over everything it touched. Ug!

Still, I’d shelled out quite a bit of money for the Alli Starter Pack, so I intended to take every last pill, even if that meant cooking more boring, bland, unappetizing crap in order to do so.

Good thing there actually are some good recipes in The alli Cookbook, and mac & cheese is one of them.

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I’ve never played coy about the fact that I’m a chubby girl. I have a rather unhealthy love of all things fatty, sweet, and salty — the three worst things things you can crave according to David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite Dr. Kessler spent plenty of time dumpster diving at his local Chili’s after hours in order to get the prized nutrition labels off the boxes of food sent to the restaurant. (You didn’t really think the “chefs” at your local family chain restaurants actually cooked, did you?) Turns out, we eat too much because everything we buy — that is, that we don’t make ourselves — is loaded with crap. For example, the Southwest Egg Rolls that I love to death? Those bad boys contain 910 calories, 57 grams of fat and 1,960 milligrams of sodium per serving. YUM!

Of course, the thinking for me has always been that the good stuff tastes like crap, so let’s just be fat and happy instead of skinny and miserable. This is a food tradition passed down to me by both sides of my family, but especially my father’s. See, my mother’s entire family struggles with weight issues because their father instilled in his three girls the idea that all of life’s problems can be solved with a big bowl of coffee ice cream, potato chips, or beer — just not at the same time, of course. That would be gross. My father’s family, however, is comprised of rather thin Southern women and rather heavy gentlemen from both sides of the Mason Dixon line. My paternal grandmother, as I remember her, was probably anorexic; her relationship to food was emotional, but in the “the way to a person’s heart is through their stomach” sort of way. She had this rather Southern habit of cooking every meal as if an army would pop by at any moment, and the troops must be fed — there were always leftovers that she’d whip into something at the next meal, though she never seemed to actually eat. In memory, she sits at the head of the table, encouraging my rather hefty father, bloated mother, and my young, ballooning self to eat more, dishing out more to us, but never to herself.

Did I mention she was Southern?

Because of my late grandmother, who I loved dearly, I have very fond memories of running around on an open farm in western Pennsylvania, and of food that was only properly cooked when it was smothered in sausage gravy or deep fried to a crisp brown. Biscuits were made with buttermilk and lard, and of course there was always dessert, which you always ate if you finished your meal. And you always finished your meal, because the country-fried steak and fried potatoes and greens were so damned good.

So I learned that skinny women cook fattening food, which tastes delicious.

And, it is assumed by both sides of my family, that the converse is therefore true: health food sucks.

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It was a cold, rainy Saturday two weeks ago when I received three packages from Amazon.com in the mail: Green Day’s new album 21st Century Breakdown, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Pygmy, and Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s new book Vegan Brunch: Homestyle Recipes Worth Waking Up For-From Asparagus Omelets to Pumpkin Pancakes. Guess which book I picked up and read through cover to cover almost immediately?

Now, honestly, I’m a kinda chubby girl who has an insatiable sweet tooth, one that calls my name softly in the middle of the night with dreams of cakes, cookies, and all sorts of very sugary things. Even breakfast cannot escape – I’m a huge fan of a giant stack of pancakes dripping with syrup on Saturday morning and a muffin, danish, or pastry when grabbing a weekday breakfast on the go. Naturally, I looked to Isa’s new book and immediately was captivated lovely food items in the sweet section of the book, and especially Banana Rabanada, which is parenthetically noted as “Brazillian French Toast”.

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